The building itself seemed provisional. Carpet tiles lifting at the corners. Water stain spreading across the acoustic ceiling like a continent taking shape. The fluorescent tubes hummed their dying frequencies.

He sat at the desk that was not his desk. Would never be his. The nameplate holder empty. In the drawer a single bent paperclip and the dried ring of someone’s coffee from years before.

They told him three weeks. Maybe four. He nodded.

The woman at the next station had photographs pinned to her fabric wall. Children at various ages. A dog. A beach. She’d been there nine years she said. He looked at the pins. Tiny holes in the fabric where other photographs had been.

At lunch he walked the mall next door. Retail spaces empty behind soaped glass. For lease signs sun-faded to illegibility. The sandwich shop where he bought his lunch would be gone by summer. He could see it. The owner’s eyes when he counted the register. The way she looked at the empty tables.

Everything was going. All of it. The temp agency with its peeling logo. The bus stop bench cracked down the middle. Even the road itself settling into the earth.

He filed papers they gave him. Answered the phone with the company name. No one asked his. At five he logged out.

Riding the bus home he watched the city pass by. More storefronts and offices.

He pressed his forehead to the window.

The shabby he moved through was a wealth of sorts he thought…

And closed his eyes.